Threats in Sector Deus
The Imperium's enemies are many and varied, and vary in magnitude from being a minor trouble for merchant fleets to potentially bringing about the destruction of an entire segmentum. There are two major threats in Sector Deus that have the potential to inflict massive damage across many systems. Oldest of these is The Grave, a massive warpstorm host to an unknown but large population of heretical renegades that worship the chaos gods. Fortunately it is mostly contained by the efforts of Malta, and though smaller raiding groups escape the warpstorm no major fleet has ever broken through. The second major threat is the Styrian Triarchy, essentially an entire subsector of Deus that turned renegade centuries ago. Following a heretical faith and exhibiting fanatical and very warlike behaviour in their endless xenocidal campaigns on the fringes of their territory, the Styrian Triarchy is a dangerous foe that could plunge the entire sector into a sizeable war. But there are many lesser foes that hound the Imperium without being so massive as to threaten the entire sector, and they are listed here. Constant threats These are foes that could strike at any time, anywhere in the Sector. Mostly piratical in nature, these forces are the dread of honest Chartist Captains everywhere. Fortunately given their relative scarcity and the massive size of the Merchant Fleet only incredibly unlucky souls will find themselves victims of these predators, but woe betide those unlucky souls. 'Pirates' Corsairs, privateers, raiders, pirates, scum. These are humans that stalk the void for victims to loot and enslave. Their origins are many and varied. Some are Chartists seeking to augment their profit, others are former-Chartists that have fully embraced the life of a pirate. Others could be vessels that have pirated for centuries and Captained by successive generations of pirates, and some could even be Rogue Traders whose greed has overtaken them. There could even be pirate ships originating from independent worlds like Caseblanco and Haven, these renegade souls more than happy to prey on Imperial traffic for their own gain. Finally, the most dreaded human pirates are those that have pledged themselves to the forces of Chaos. These damned souls are just as insane and murderous in the void as they are on the ground, and where other human pirates would leave each other be or even cooperate; chaos pirates forever stand alone, hating all and hated by all in turn. Regardless of their origins, all human pirates follow the same basic behaviour. Though mostly crewed by renegades from independent worlds or traitors who turned their back on the Imperium (or those who have simply been dragged into piracy by their Captain and are too suppressed to mutiny), sometimes alien species like the Xo'nad can be found serving in small numbers of human pirate ships. These ships hunt merchant shipping wherever they can. The most heavily used warp routes, like those surrounding Templos or Nymeria, are typically the most escorted and patrolled. Piratical activity on these lanes is limited to small-time ambushes where the pirates intimidate vulnerable merchant ships into paying tolls or tribute, as the pirates do not have time to pillage their victim proper before Imperial Navy escorts respond to the distress signal of the victim. But the secondary routes, leading to periphery worlds and/or faster than the primary routes, are not so heavily guarded. When pirates strike here they assault lone merchant ships to loot their cargo, enslave their crew (or at least any crew that survive their merciless onslought of muder and pillaging), and sieze the ship itself. Most pirate ships operate alone but pirate wolfpacks, though rare, may even attack entire merchant convoys in these outlying regions. Finally some pirates may even raid planets themselves, looting and enslaving settlements before fleeing from the planet's inevitable retaliation. Chaos-affiliated pirates are mostly active in Subsector Tyranus, but if their unholy luck holds some can find their way deeper into the sector. Patrolling warp routes to guard vital merchant shipping against pirates consumes a vast proportion of the Imperial Navy's resources, despite the fact that the majority of pirate vessels are small raiders that are no match for Naval warships. The pirates' only advantage over the Navy is speed and colossal stretches of space to hide in. Though many pirates operate out of Tartarus, Caseblanco and Haven no one knows how many small pirate havens could be in Sector Deus. Derelict asteroid bases, habitable planetoids and small deep-space stations have all been known to house these small societies that primarily consist of excess pirates their ship(s) do not have the capacity to hold all at once; their families; and slaves they have taken in their raids (most enslaved victims are sold to worlds like Caseblanco or Haven, but many pirates keep some for themselves). Piracy has its risks though. Transport ships may be equipped with concealed guns that could destroy a foolhardy pirate, and if caught by the Imperial Navy or any other Imperial entity pirates can expect either imprisonment in one of the Navy's slave gangs or simply immediate execution. In Sector Deus, just as in almost every Imperial sector, human piracy is by far the most common occurrance of hostile action against the Imperium. Though obviously it is more common around systems with dense traffic like Trade Hubs piracy can strike anywhere. The most powerful pirate in the Sector is Daikan Alepros, but the political power of Tartarus - that he wields - affords his wolfpack near-impunity provided they don't cause too much damage. 'Ork Freebooterz' The hated greenskin lurks in every known corner of space, and they are just as savage and agressive in space as they are on the ground. Ork Freebooterz are orks that have embraced a piratical lifetyle in the void, seeking out battle and plunder as eagerly as ever. As of 350.M41 the Imperial Navy has recorded roughly a dozen seperate escort-class orknoid vessels thought to be freebooterz in Sector Deus and all were travelling alone, each a seperate band. Lone freebooter vessels are not a major concern for the Imperial Navy, as they pose no real threat to the Imperium proper and would be too fast to hunt down anyway. Nevertheless unescorted merchant transports are easy prey for these vicious beasts, and orks are rarely known for their restraint or mercy. The only exception to these lone freebooterz is the fleet of Kaptin Arm-Choppa. This freebooter captain controls a terror-class capital ship along with a handful of escorts, and is a terrible danger to even well-escorted shipping convoys. His small fleet's last known location was in Subsector Cryptus in 330.M41, where they desolated a transport convoy as it departed Tartarus. But Arm-Choppa could have travelled anywhere in the sector by now and every Chartist prays they are not his next victim. 'Eldar Corsairs' Consisting of Eldar who sought to escape the rigid nature of craftworld life, but not descend into the darkness of Commoragh, are the Eldar Corsairs. Aloof and arrogant at the best of times, without the discipline of their craftworld these Eldar see little issue with wanton murder and destruction of the innocent to sate their weak-willed need for adventure. They savage imperial traffic of all kinds - from merchant to military - and even other Xenos (though never other Eldar). However as their motives for piracy are mostly to sate their deep-seated need for adrenaline & prestige rather than loot, most Eldar corsairs simply cripple their victim before tallying the triumph and moving on. Because of this Eldar Corsairs tend to leave ambused victims mostly undamaged compared to pirates seeking to loot and pillage everything they can, but the Eldar's vastly superior ships allow them to grind entire shipping lanes to a halt through crippling whole convoys in a single fly-by before easily escaping from the responding Imperial Navy. Fortunately Eldar corsairs are rare in Sector Deus, with only a pair of escort-class corsair vessels reported sighted in the last fifty years. One of these was destroyed when the pair attempted to sieze a Lunar-class Cruiser of the Imperial Navy in an ill-advised gambit, and presumably several thousand corsair scum were killed along with it (it's unlikely their soulstones survived the destruction of their vessel either, so they are likely enjoying a richly deserved afterlife at the hands of Slaanesh). Since then the remaining corsair vessel (reportedly an Aconite-class) has rarely been sighted, each time only striking lone transport ships or small, unescorted convoys. Reports from the crews of these transports claim that the Aconite had crippled them before they even knew they were in danger, the swift, heavily-armed eldar vessel all but immune to what little resistance their victims could offer. 'Dark Eldar Raiders' Most feared of all insterstellar pirates, the Dark Eldar prefer to leave as much of their target ship intact as possible, for the loot they are interested in is slaves to drag back to commoragh for a fate worse than death. Though Dark Eldar launch ground attacks across the galaxy with relative frequency via ancient webway gates hidden on the planets, the actions of their void raiders follow a more cyclical pattern. They will probe regions of space, carefully noting Imperial response, then rapidly stepping up their activities if conditions are deemed favourable. Once the Imperium begins real efforts to combat the Dark Eldar they will move on to another sector, the dark kin ever loathe to risk their own precious lives. The last major Dark Eldar raids in Sector Deus occured in the mid-to-late 340s.M41. Over the period of a few years Dark Eldar raiders assaulted merchant traffic and even raided planets themselves for slaves, taking hundreds of thousands of prisoners over the course of their operations. Fortunately in 349.M41 the experienced tactician Lord Admiral Tyrel Hagen caught the primary Dark Eldar Raider fleet in an ambush, trapping them with long range weapons before obliterating them utterly with waves of attack craft. Waves of escape pods fled from the doomed eldar ships, but Hagen had every single one destroyed even as the foul xenos aboard snivelled for their pathetic lives. Since then Dark Eldar activity in the sector has decreased dramatically, and their brash raids on planets themselves have halted completely. Nevertheless individual Dark Eldar raiding ships have been reported stalking transport convoys across the sector, and the sudden disappearence of several lone vessels near these sightings mean the Dark Eldar are still a terrifyingly real threat to the merchant fleet of Sector Deus. Potential threats This is a list of the number of xenos societies that exist in and around Sector Deus and are known the the Imperium. Some are relatively benign, others meanwhile are incredibly aggressive. What all have in common is that they could pose a real threat to Imperial systems, or even entire subsectors, if they attack. 'Chaos Warbands' Whereas Chaos Pirates are simply a ragtag collection of human pirates that worship the chaos gods, Chaos Warbands are relatively organised and powerful forces that enact conflict for the glory of Chaos. Though different warbands have varying amounts of power, most contain at least some Chaos Space Marines as a leadership caste, along with thousands - if not more - of human cultists under their command. Warbands also tend to control more powerful ships than chaos pirates such as heavier frigates or even capital ships compared to their simple raiders. This is because warbands are powerful enough to claim the more powerful ships that venture into the Grave, wrenching them from the wishful grasp of the raider pirates that fall upon them. Because of the power they are capable of projecting, Chaos Warbands can even pose serious threats to planets themselves. Fortunately as they are of greater size than chaos pirates it is much harder for them to escape the grave, but when they do they pose a serious threat. The warbands currently known to be operating in Sector Deus are listed here. It is these warbands - along with hordes of chaos pirate fodder - that a warlord must hope to unite if they are to attempt an invasion of Malta. 'Cygnoid Coalition' Beyond the galactic rim approximately 5000 lightyears from the far edge of Subsector Adamantis lies the globular cluster known as the Cygnus 22a cluster. This collection of ancient red stars has never been visited by humans, but is home to a number of alien species that have forayed into the Milky Way in the past. Chief amongst these incursions was during the age of strife, when these xenos seized a beachead in the sector and laid siege to Adamant Prime. Fortunately the arrival of the Great Crusade drove these xenos back from whence they came. This did not however discourage the xenos from trying again, and many times in Sector history they have made the long journey from their homeworlds to Sector Deus in search of new territory. Every time they have been successfully pushed back by the forces of Subsector Adamantis but not without damage, and the true strength of the xenos is utterly unknown. As far as the Imperium knows everything humanity has faced from them in the past has merely been scouting parties. Furthermore, each incursion leaves a scattering of stragglers behind, and though hunted doggedly by the Imperium these xenos forces have occasionally found their way to the deepest regions of the sector. More than a few vessels originating from the Cygnus cluster are still unnaccounted for after being sighted entering the sector. 'Ork Realms' There are a number of ork worlds in Sector Deus and any one could ignite in a sudden waaagh at any moment if one powerful warboss manages to unite every faction. In Subsector Cryptus lies 3 separate ork empires. The heavy infestations on Drohia and Remgar have yet to reach advanced status and still mostly consist of fractured, feral tribes. However if one warboss were to rise above all the others their evolution would accelerate at a terrific rate, and they would start building roks to assault nearby worlds. Ord however has already advanced past that point and has been engaged with the non-Imperial humans of Sondark for many decades. Should Sondark fall the orks would have access to masses of additional materiel and could threaten the entire subsector. Aragak'z Relm lies in Subsector Adamantis. Already united under the deadly warboss Aragak, the millions of orks on this world are champing at the bit to escape and do battle across the stars. Fortunately for the Imperium their rok and voidship construction sites are frequently bombarded by the Imperial Navy, keeping the orks trapped on their world. However each pre-emptive strike becomes harder as Aragak builds up his fleet of low orbit defense craft, and with every passing decade Waaagh Aragak seems more and more inevitable. The relatively benign ork realm of Pexar lies in Subsector Aeternus. Fortunately the Blood Axes of this world are mostly content to fight amongst themselves and serve as mercenaries to those who would hire them, but this is only due to the influence of the 'moderate' warboss Fragmakka. Should Fragmakka be killed and replaced there's no telling what the orks could do, especially with the extensive warp routes at their disposal in Subsector Aeternus. Finally, the world of Triot in Subsector Meridian was overrun by an Ork Waaagh originating from deep space. Though Triot's defences stalled the waaagh and destroyed a large percentage of the greenskin horde the xenos eventually proved victorious, with what remains of Triot's population forced into a dense mountain range on the planet's west continent. Since then the orks of Triot have been attempting to regain the momentum their waaagh lost but since the loss of their warboss when a booby-trapped manufactorum collapsed on its head the greenskin horde has lacked the coherency needed to build more interstellar craft. However it only takes one exceptional ork to make just that happen, and though Triot's large industrial base is heavily damaged the orks could quickly turn it to mass production of their ramshackle creations. Becaue of this looming threat the fortress world of Gradburg is eager to retake Triot and destroy the orks before they have a chance to organise. But support from Sector Command is slow in arriving and Gradburg is loathe to engage in such a war without spcialist assistance, their own forces only capable of a costly war of attrition with the greenskin horde. 'Meridian Xenos Alliance' This cluster of systems lies on the far edge of Sector Deus in Subsector Meridian. Known component species are the Kruk and the Canids, and though their first major offensive against an Imperial world - the invasion of Le Keers - was ultimately a failure, they caused irreperable damage to the planet and it was eventually lost to Imperial control by internal strife. In the decades since this attack the xenos alliance has been relatively inactive, waiting in their quadrant of space. It is likely they learned much from their first war with humanity, and the fortress world of Gradburg fears what they may be capable of once they decide to attack again. 'Genestealers' Encountered on the planet of San Larion in 351.M41, these strange reptilian/insectoid xenos were found to be behind a rebellion against Imperial control in Sector Deus. The Ghosts of Retribution suffered severe losses purging the vile and incredibly dangerous strain from the planet. If these creatures found a way off-world via Chartist vessels they can pose a serious threat to any planet they arrive at (as well as the vessel they have stowed away upon). The biggest danger these xenos pose lies not in their combat prowess (which is incredibly impressive) but in their ability to infiltrate the host society through infected individuals that appear completely normal. This infection will lead to the spawning of hybrid and eventually purestrain genestealers, one of whom will become a Patriarch that can levy complete psychic control over the purestrains, hybrids and even the infected humans. Category:Xenos